Watershed Watch Advocates for Clear Standards for Environmental Flows in WAM Process

Watershed Watch Salmon Society believes that BC’s main water law is long overdue for a major overhaul and has been providing input to the Living Water Smart BC Water Act Modernization process.

One issue that has been raised in the Water Act Modernization process is the need for water for the entire ecosystem—fish, wildlife, and habitat—also called environmental flows.  The commitment to legislate environmental flow needs is a vital part of the Water Act reform, and needs to be carefully designed, based on best practices and lessons learned from around the world.  Watershed Watch advises the province to use and build on the "instream flow needs" approach developed for the successful BC Hydro water use planning (WUP) process. In particular, ecologically-based flow allocations for different life history stages of fish (spawning, passage, juvenile rearing, etc.) were developed based on each river’s "mean annual discharge." This robust approach relied on the best science, adaptive management (including long-term productivity monitoring), and is robust across watersheds and streams of all sizes.

Watershed Watch strongly favours legally binding standards for environmental flows because they:

• are enforceable,
• lead to better results,
• provide certainty,
• avoid the need for self-policing, and
• provide a higher level of protection for water and ecosystems.

Moreover, standards may help resolve some of the undesirable "bargaining" that currently takes place between proponents of projects of industrial water extraction and overworked ministry employees over "acceptable" flows for aquatic systems. Legally binding standards would end the practice of negotiating acceptable flows.The province should also strongly consider a simple but long overdue principle that fish have rights to water.

For more Watershed Watch recommendations on Water Act Reform, see our Brief on BC Water Act Reform or our Water page on our website.

By Linda Nowlan and Trish Hall, for Watershed Watch Salmon Society